


Sleeping Fire

by seelieknight



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Post-ACOWAR, Spoilers, the scene we deserved but never got
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 15:22:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10856724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seelieknight/pseuds/seelieknight
Summary: The missing scene between Helion and Lucien. (contains spoilers)





	Sleeping Fire

**Author's Note:**

> THIS CONTAINS MAJOR ACOWAR SPOILERS. Don't say I didn't warn you. This is just a loose idea of a scene I really wanted to see in ACOWAR, but perhaps we will get to read it in a novella (because I'm 100% certain we will be getting a Lucien novella). Helion/ Lucien's relationship.

“Her fox dreams of wings and sleeping fire.”

At least, that was what Elain had told him as Lucien passed by the garden two mornings ago. 

If he were being honest with himself he knew that he had rushed by, nearly tripping over his own feet, not because he was in a hurry to join Feyre’s meeting with a newly crowned High Lady, but because of what he saw burrowed between the flowers. Upon noticing that Elain wasn’t alone— that shadows unspooled from the edges of her small lavender field— he had felt his heart speed up, then skip a beat. The sudden halt inside his chest caused him to stumble, but before his mate could look up from her delicate handwork and inquire if something was wrong, he had fled. But he had no doubts that those shadows saw him, and that they drew back slightly… as if they didn't intend to harm. As if they were… hesitant. 

It came out of the wind sighing against the tall grass. 

Both he and Azriel stared at her, one Fae in pursuit of the city below, the other resting on his elbows beneath a tree. She blushed gently at their attention, and mumbled an apology for “being so obtuse.” Azriel looked like he wanted to say something, but as his eyes drifted back to the Autumn Fae, he just frowned. Lucien, not knowing what else to do, said hoarsely, “I’ll keep that in mind.” 

And then he was gone.

The path from the Town House into Velaris was but a few minutes, and soon he found himself shrugging the shoulders of his jacket closer to his chin. A calming chill settled against the wind as grey clouds smudged the midmorning sky, causing shop owners to close their windows and children to hurry back indoors. As if waiting for the last civilian to find shelter, the rain began. 

Candles slowly lit every storefront, the scent of freshly baked pastries and incense from the nearest high priestess’s vigil shrouding him in a foreign aroma reminiscent of when he was younger and his brothers, not yet soured with time, would created towering bonfires under a plumb, star speckled sky.

He ducked through the heavy wooden door and shut it gently with his long fingers. 

Whereas outside the scent of rain and smoke lingered, in this shop the air was peppered with metal and firewood and often times sweat or the occasional spilled spirit. As usual, it was empty. The only patrons who deigned to enter were either fumbling apprentices, lordlings with unchecked boredom, and occasionally the Illyrian commander himself. But Lucien knew that with Cassian it wasn’t so much the shopping he was interested in than it was screwing around with the newly acquainted Inner Circle member. 

Lucien didn't know how he felt about any of it; that he was considered part of their family, or that Cassian visited him more frequently than any of the others. 

It… unsettled him. 

This sense of home.

“Are you done shuffling around like a newborn bat or shall I have you solder more hilts?”

He glanced at the women perched in the far corner of the room, boots propped up against the rickety table, sharpening a blade between her hands. The murky sunlight that filtered in made her rich brown skin seem luminescent against the shadows cast by the hearth, and her braided onyx hair was neatly parted to either side of her neck, exposing the silken black tattoos that rose from somewhere beneath her shirt to the corners of her ears. And if the tattoos weren't a dead giveaway for who she was, then the membranous wings that stretched behind her sure as hell were.

“I see you’re as cheerful as ever,” he said.

She gave him a warm smile that did nothing to warm the gesture of her middle finger quirking upward. But Lucien laughed. And that laugh scratched up his throat like a trapped hothouse bird. 

She never lifted her hazel eyes from her work as he sat down across from the Illyrian blacksmith and began to draw a new design against a recently forged sword. Peering at the one she held, Lucien could see twin dragons scaling up the hilt of the weapon and the beginnings of a star motif being wrought into the design. 

His own latest creation was a chaotic scene full of elemental things. The sun stretched against the quicksilver tones of the knife, it’s rays curling into stars that melted into waves that burned into flames and so forth. Woodland creatures gathered near the pommel, upon which a massive fox had it’s lips curled back as though it were laughing or shrieking at the sun.

The two of them didn’t forge weapons for battle. Now that the war was over, the only time they ever created surplus amounts of armaments was when Rhysand inquired for more to be sent into the camps to be used for training. 

But Lucien had always been infatuated with knifes, perhaps a dark part of him that still drew ties to the Autumn Court, and the artwork and craftsmanship that went into creating them. No two knives were ever the same, for each was forged in different fire. 

It was exactly what he had told her when he first entered her shop. It didn't take long to form a friendship with the blacksmith, and soon he was offering his labor free of cost. Both of them found it to be relaxing— about as inviting as Feyre found painting to be. 

So he continued to play with fire, even though something else festered inside him.

It was days like this, when the sun was overcast by storms, that a foreign tug pulled at his ribs, as though he was tethered to the missing light and it cried for him to return. 

“Your drifting again, fox.” Valora quipped, finally looking at him. 

He rested the tools on the wooden table and gave her a bored stare. 

Valora had been one of the numerous Ilyrian women who decided to live in Velaris after the secret City of Starlight became painted on every map of Prythian. Most of them who relocated into the city did so on their own accord, Valora had explained, for the treatment of women in the camps had gotten progressively more tolerable. Wing clippings ceased all together and everyone trained side by side, given equal opportunity to pursue the Blood Rites and join the legions in the skies.

She had mentioned even bastard borns were given better living quarters. Lucien knew without her telling him that the new treatment was likely born from how vital Cassian was to their winning of the last war. He wondered if the commander was even aware of the pillar he knocked down.

But every so often, Lucien would catch Valora staring to the North. 

Just as he sometimes glanced southward and wondered what was becoming of his old courts. 

They never spoke about their previous homes. 

And they preferred it that way.

After Hybern had fallen, Prythian entered a state of silence. The rebuilding didn’t start until a month ago and it was still considered the earlier stages of the aftermath. Things had been so surreal, but they had not won easily and the death toll was much larger than the one charted from the Mortal War centuries ago. He had not been born yet, but the stories told from both his eldest brother and his father made him glad of that small blessing.

The two worked in silence for a moment more until Valora grew bored and announced that she was returning to the Steepes for a few weeks. 

Lucien frowned.

“I’m only going back to check in with my sister. She just gave birth shy of two months ago and I want to see her son, my nephew,” she explained. 

Standing up, he grabbed the jacket he had discarded. “You don’t have to justify anything to me. If you want to return… there, then what is stopping you? Go check on your family, V. I won’t cause too much trouble in your absence.” He had been about to say home. If you want to return home. 

And from the wariness drawing her usual lively face…

She snorted, albeit a bit forced. He offered a small smile. 

Before he left the shop, Lucien placed his hand on hers and squeezed tight. Valora looked up, her molten eyes shinning, and curled her fingers around his. They didn't speak, because they didn’t have to. The relationship built between them was highly platonic, if not a bit familial in the sense that an older sister might have with her younger brother. From spending so much time in the presence of the other, sharing wounds and sympathies, they’d formed a friendship as strong as the one he’d seen Azriel and Cassian have. 

He wondered if that was a common thing, or if it felt this way to him because he was unaware of how this bond should feel. He once thought he’d experienced it with Tamlin. Now he wasn’t sure he could ever rely on his emotions to guide him. 

The rain had stopped some time before Lucien walked back up the path of the Sidra. But now night was prominent and thickly lapsing against the drowning sun behind the mountains.

He must have stayed longer than he’d thought, considering he’d left Elain in her garden around noon and now the sky was bleeding blue. 

Stopping only to retrieve a cup of tea, Lucien continued his journey back to the house when he realized there was something missing. It hit him when he saw a boy perched against a fountain in the square, a heavy book in his lap. He’d promised Feyre to visit the library and check in with the women there. In the aftermath of the war, Rhysand vouched that at least one member from his Inner Circle, including himself and his High Lady, would go to see the Priestesses every day and inquire about their well-being. And with the High Lord off in the Hewn City, the High Lady visiting the Winter Court with Mor, and Cassian stationed somewhere in the Illyrian camps for the week…. 

The prospect of seeing where Azriel went (or rather, where he didn’t go since Lucien last saw him) was too painful to bear, and he’d sooner visit the Weaver than ask Amren for any favors…. 

With a little reluctance, he turned around and hurried towards the library.

Lucien knew that his trepidation to visit the women didn't stem from anything other than his own trauma. Now that he was slowly patching things together, he was more aware of himself than he’d ever been before. And recognizing that he was also a survivor of abuse and rape made visiting this specific building a thousand times more terrifying. He’d only offered to go once. Upon Mor asking him how his visit went, he just smiled around a cup of wine and replied that the women were all safe and at peace. He forgot to mention the three times he had thrown up his guts after rushing back outside and ducking into the nearest alleyway. 

How could he face them and offer support when he didn’t know how to cope with himself?

Feyre… tried to help. She would speak with him every day, as if he were the Priestesses they all visited and coddled and soothed. She would hold his hand only when he let her and tell him that he had escaped, that nobody would hurt him, that he had the power to withstand anything and that he could live without only breathing as a means of life. 

He didn't deserve it. Any of it.

So perhaps that was why he never told them about how hard it was for him to do this task. Even when he knew it offered him a small solace whenever his friend did it for him. But then again, he had always been a coward.

Light spilled in from the high windows—moonlight, meant to cleanse and illuminate. His silent footfalls dipped into each pool of light as his tall frame cast mountains against the rows of books and wooden shelves. The tea in his hand was now cold, and he cursed himself for not thinking to bring food with him. Maybe if he left to find some pastries…. that always made people seem happier….

Fuck it. 

He needed to keep walking forward.

But the closer into the heart of the keep he got, the farther the noise and light reached. It was as if the library had been enclosed in a grave for years, with no light or living creatures to reside down here. And he wasn’t an idiot— he knew that for however quiet this place often was, tonight it seemed like that silence was a real thing. A creature that lurked in the abyss, perhaps taking a bed where Bryaxis once slept.

Lucien felt it then. The wrongness. 

Discarding his cup and steadily reaching for the knife at his side, he walked along the carpeted path that spiraled downward. His breathing was rapid, his heartbeat nearly shrieking in his own ears. He didn’t say a word, knowing that would out his location if there really was a threat here. So instead he scanned the hollow place with whatever dregs of power he could conjure to his mind. Yet even doing so, he felt nothing but solid air and emptiness. 

If something had happened to the Priestesses while he was meant to visit them…

He ran.

Clotho should have been at the front gate. His first giveaway that something was off. And then there was the lack of light, and the lack of sound. Perhaps they were sleeping, but all of them? At such an early hour? It was a fool’s hope.

He flew on swift feet, checking every corner and crevice for either the women or the thing that hid from his reach. For half a second, the thought of calling for help crossed his mind. He was already entering a panic that he knew wouldn't ease until he was back outside in the fresh, cold air. But he also knew he couldn't leave until he knew everyone was safe. 

And that is precisely when it happened. 

Lucien froze. 

And whirled around to face the vibrant eyes of a naga-hound. 

“Fuck me.”

It lunged, grey fangs dripping with gore, and it’s claws dug into his jacket faster than he could procure the blade at his side. They slammed to the floor with enough force to wake whatever else was resting in the library. Lucien snarled and thrust the creature off him, gripping his weapon and letting it sail straight for the hound’s head. The naga noticed it a moment too late, forcing the blade to slice off an ear rather than hit the central point of it’s head. It screamed, and the sound was like a dry tree snapping in half. 

Lucien went for his second blade, the last one on his person, and waited for the beast to advance. If he discarded that weapon he would have to rely only on his magic, for his strength was nothing in comparison to the muscles on this Hybern bred creature. So he waited, and the thing didn’t disappoint.

But what Lucien had miscalculated was the silence. It had gotten too quiet again, right before the second attack, and then suddenly he was knocked from behind as a second naga-hound burst from the darkness and ripped into his throat like a pair of shears clipping clean into a rosebush. 

He cried out, feeling warm blood leak from the fresh wound. It had hit a vital artery at the rate in which his life-force was now bleeding out of him. Lucien grew light headed, but growled back at the creatures and forced his knife into the nearest available aim. The beast went down instantly, taking with it an entire bookcase as it rocked the earth beneath it. The second one howled, bellowing it’s fury. 

Lucien quickly glanced to the side, his chest rising and falling erratically, to see his knife wedged deep into the hound’s right eye. His stomach turned over and he had to choke back his own vomit. Not now, not now, not now, not now.

But those were tears in his good eye.

He shakily rose to his feet and backed up, never once wandering out of sight from his opponent. But when his shoulders hit a solid barrier he felt his hope completely vanish. Feeling behind him, where he knew was once open air, was now a magic wall concealing him and the creatures inside this sector of the library.

The Mother must be laughing herself hoarse.

The naga-hound crouched low, and Lucien braced himself. When it erupted off the ground, however, it wasn’t met with his blade or fist…. rather, the thing erupted into flames and hit the ground as it turned to ash. Its cries were choked off by the blast of power he felt coursing through his veins. That fast it was gone. 

Lucien slumped back against the barrier and slid to the ground, staring at nothing. 

He had summoned fire for the first time in decades. Not just any small kindle of light to create a candle, or heat a slab of meat, or warm a bedside. No, he had channeled a source of power only his brothers had seen him wield. And he’d wielded it with more force than he’d ever conjured before. It was almost like seeing Rhysand mist all those Hybern soldiers, yet instead of feeling awe and slight fear, he just felt… numb. 

It was then, as his wounds ever so slowly stitched back together, drenched in his own blood with two naga-hounds trapped in the crevice of a dark library with him, that he sensed someone winnow behind him. And for whatever strength he had left, he couldn't find it in himself to turn around and face whoever it was.

But he didn't have to. 

The barrier he’d been leaning against was gone, but it took him longer to realize that it had vanished before the other person entered the hall. Yet, from the sharp intake of breath, it would seem like they had been present to watch it vanish. To see what power Lucien always knew he had, but never fully acknowledged for fear of learning something that would likely be used against him.

For it was Day power that also mixed with the fire of Autumn in his blood.

The scent of figs and warm tree bark replaced the reek of the decaying naga hound as Helion Spell-Cleaver stepped in front of him and stared at Lucien with unreadable eyes.

The bolt of white fabric carefully decorating his powerful body was still resplendent in the darkness, an inner light illuminating from within. The golden serpent coiled around his bicep stood out starkly against his skin, and the crown of glowing spikes atop is head appeared like the elongated shadows Lucien had casted upon entering the sanctuary. 

Powerful, with lazy grace, and wrath hidden beneath those amber eyes. And yet, when he looked at Lucien, there was something offsetting his usual carelessness. The way his eyes widened, his muscles strained… indeed, Lucien was quite the sight to behold at the moment. 

Lucien waited for what was to come.

But the High Lord of Day just stared and stared at him.

So the Autumn Fae swallowed thickly and made to stand up, feeling the blood drain from his head and out the open gash in his neck. A second passed where there was nothing but blinding light painting his view. And then Helion crashed to his knees before him and reached for his shoulders, drawing him towards that source of eternal warmth and brightness. 

“Lucien,” he whispered, his voice shaking. 

Lucien didn't respond, the loss of so much blood finally taking a toll on him. But the wounds closed together, stitching shut until his flesh was smooth and unmarred save for a small scar at the base of his collar bone. Blinking back spots from his vision, Lucien noticed the gore that covered him, drying to his golden skin, and the fingers that were trembling as they touched where the gash had once been. Following the hand to its owner, he froze and stared up at amber eyes, a shade like burning leaves…

“Thank you, High Lord.”

Helion began shaking his head, clutching Lucien harder. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but no sound cam out. Lucien didn't think the High Lord had ever been speechless in his life. 

Those trembling fingers straightened and the hold on Lucien lightened as Helion helped Lucien to his feet, still keeping an arm around him in fear that the other might fall down again even though there was no longer a scratch on his body. The High Lord, somewhat unknowingly healed all wounds from Lucien, including the paper cut on his index finger from that morning. Why there was such strength behind that healing he did not know. Didn’t even think the High Lord knew, especially since it was Thesan who excelled at such powers.

“Are you hurt? Does anything still pain you?” 

They were calm questions but they did nothing to hide the severity behind those words.

So Lucien slowly shook his head. “I am fine.” Even though he felt anything but. Even though being in this place made him want to curl in on himself like an animal in winter. 

Something like devastation crossed Helion’s face, but it was gone a moment later. 

Carefully, as if weighing each word, the High Lord asked, “How were you able to bring down that wall?”

The fear came back full force, causing him to look anywhere but those burning amber eyes. Thankfully he was saved from answering as Rhysand and an unknown Darkbringer, by the look of the warrior’s armor, winnowed before them. The High Lord of Night focused on the scene in front of him and his jaw tightened. There was a silent communication between him and his warrior before the Darkbringer nodded and drew his blade, walking down the corridor to their left to find more possible enemies lurking in the dark.

“It would seem that I missed a party.” 

Lucien was going to strangle him, but from the unimpressed look on Helion’s face he might have to beat him to it. “There were two naga-hounds prowling about your court, Rhysand. This is hardly the time.”

Rhys’s eyes darkened as he looked upon the ashes and the broken bones of the creatures behind them, and he addressed Lucien as he said, “I was in a meeting with Kier regarding the boundary lines of the courts when I felt one of the Priestesses press the emergency bell. I brought a few of the Darkbringers with me in case the threat was more than I anticipated, but it would seem that Helion also decided to come offer aid. He and Tarquin were at the meeting as well, but Tarquin had already departed when I felt the pull to the library.” 

It explained why Helion was also here, but now why he was acting this way around Lucien.

Rhysand seemed to glean something else occurring and wisely kept his mouth shut save for informing them that the women were all safe and had been hiding from the creatures until Lucien arrived and was trapped with them. That was the moment Clotho rung the bell. 

The relief was instantaneous and he nearly sagged against the male holding him upright, but kept his eyes on the wall ahead, where the exit to the building resided. Rhysand murmured something he missed and Helion narrowed his eyes, but nodded. Then Rhys was gone. And Helion turned back to face Lucien.

Slowly, he let him stand on his own. As if he were a newborn deer and had to be monitored. Lucien felt a growl build in the back of his throat. “I can stand on my own without you hovering.”

The High Lord of Day ignored him and raised a hand to gently touch the scar that marred Lucien’s face. Lucien flinched, staring at that hand like it ended in claws, and Helion felt bile rise to his throat alongside the rage that entered his heart. “What have they done to you,” he rasped.

As he took in the familiar copper eyes, a shade or two darker than his own, and the skin a tad darker than the rest of his brothers, and the straight nose, the crooked smile, the scent of bonfires and cinnamon and… earthly sunlight… 

Helion Spell-Cleaver felt tears slide out the corner of his eyes. His warm hands rested softly on Lucien’s shoulders—Lucien, who had noticed all these revelations and began to piece things together in his mind— and he felt his heart stutter in its cage.

“All this time… you were here all this time. In my own home… in my court when you were sent as emissary… under the— by the mother, Lucien.” 

Lucien was shaking, his hands slackening at his sides as he came to the same conclusion that was always so glaringly obvious but that he was terrified to admit for fear of being resented or hunted or used… 

“My son,” Helion gasped, gripping him tightly, “my own blood and I did not know you were right in front of me. Always there, always—,” he slammed his eyes shut and bowed his head. Lucien lightly let his own head fall against his fathers, his true father, and softly let all the trappings and masks fall away as he cried. Helion’s arms were suddenly there, circled around him as he held onto his son for the first time. He held him as he would have the day he were born, with a hand resting on his fiery head, the other against his back. “I will never let anything happen to you again. Please, please forgive me for not being able to stop it. What you have went through, what you had to endure…. know that I will live out the rest of my existence with that weight on my shoulders.”

“…Father,” Lucien said quietly, hesitantly, “It wasn’t your fault.”

Helion drew back to stare at his son and felt his heart break all over again, like the day Lucien’s mother was taken from him back to that creature Beron in the Autumn Court. One day, he’d make blood rain down like falling leaves. He swore that upon the Cauldron. 

“Does…. does your mother,” he couldn't even ask. The possible answers to his unasked inquiry too damning to hear. But Lucien gathered enough of what he was trying to say, and he paled. 

“I’m not sure.” It was all he could offer as well. 

The High Lord nodded hurriedly, knowing that he needed to find her as soon as he left this court. But for now… for now, he needed to be with his son. And his son needed to know what a home truly felt like, if he’d have him. 

“Come back with me. Live in the Day Court. Be my heir, or my emissary, or even a mere Lordling— I don’t mind. But Lucien, please, I don’t think I could bear not being near you now that I know who you truly are. I might be a millennia old, but my heart still wavers for certain things. You and your mother above all else.”

To leave Night, he would be leaving behind all that which he had worked so hard to create here. Feyre would want him to go, to experience this, and he was positive Nesta and Amren wouldn’t give much of a damn. The Illyrians he had taken a liking to, especially his friend Valora… but if she could return to the camps and find happiness, then so could he. 

The thought of leaving his mate was unbearable. But the thought of not going with his father to the Day Court… 

Elain was not ready for him. So he’d wait for her, no matter how long that took. If it were a month, a year, or the rest of eternity— he would wait. And if she found love with another, if someone made her as happy and free as she needed to be, then he would fight every instinct in him and let her go. But this… 

This he could not walk away from.

So Lucien smiled at his father, a real smile that garnered his title as Lord of Foxes, and Helion shone so bright the whole of Velaris must have wondered if Bryaxis returned to its home with the sun in its mouth. 

Together, they winnowed to the Day Court.

Later on, Feyre would wink at her mate and Rhysand would smile back.

 

Somewhere in Prythian, a women stopped staring out her chamber windows, rose to her full height, and grabbed her cloak. Then she walked right out the palace doors, starting a long journey North. In her dreams, a fox encounter a male with wings. In her dreams, the fire slept long enough for her to leave its embrace. In her waking plight, she went in pursuit of her son.


End file.
